Well, the aliens returned River after a couple of hours. Needless to say she was quite puzzled as to what happened up there. "Why did they try to do a brainscan by stuffing something up the direct polar opposite opening?" And her beloved husband slept through it all. It was hard not to be resentful of that.
So in return, she played the guitar in the room as soon as she woke up...which woke Haruo out of a sound sleep. Needless to say he was not impressed...but neither was River with her somnolent husband while she was being abducted by aliens and taken off somewhere to do goodness knows what. At least she was unconscious through most of it.
In the other room, Alanna was blissfully unaware of her mother's extraterrestrial excursion out of the solar system and subsequent return as she placed brush to canvas. It was hot during the day so Haruo tried to harvest the plants as soon as he got up and before the temperature rose above 25 degrees celsius.
River felt a little "probed" so she tried to distract her mind and memories by attack a topiary carving with the chainsaw.
And Brayden decided to see exactly what the Summer Festival in Central Park was like. He didn't find it all that interesting - probably due to teenage angst and came home after only a couple of hours there. He said he had more interesting things to do at home.
Haruo did do some cooking and River exulted over the new kitchen appliances. Supposedly meant to make life easier in the kitchen, but that remains to be seen. While Haruo fished, the rest of the family played in the pool to escape the heat. And Haruo had made good on his promise to get a sno-cone machine and they were able to use it to cool down quickly. It was so easy to get overheated if one wasn't careful.
Yasahiro, Alanna's fiance had to improve his gardening skill for work (he works at the same place as Aidann and ended up doing the gardening that morning until it got too hot to be outside, after which he took a shower. Yes, Yasahiro got moved in as soon as they found out that he was engaged to Alanna.
Haruo is taking a wait and see approach to this new interloper and as Alanna's father, he looks particularly grim and forbidding right now. The good old stone-face father who looks at a potential suitor of his daughter and says. "You make her cry...I make you cry..." The only thing that seemed to cheer him up after the revelation that Alanna had gotten herself engaged to be married was a sno-cone; lots of sno-cones. Maybe he might be able to freeze his brain and hope that things turned out OK. Because if he'd heard correctly, Yasahiro was not the most responsible representative of Simkind and that revelation did nothing but irk him.
In order to soothe injured feelings Haruo suggested an excursion out to the Summer Festival and they all went, including River who was still a bit cheesed off at hubby. And they had some fun at the roller skating rink.
Alanna had a book for work that she had to read so she read at the dinner table and Haruo ate sno-cones.
As William Congreve once said so eloquently, "Musick hath charms to soothe a savage breast, To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak, I've read, that things inanimate have mov'd, And, as with living Souls, have been inform'd..." Ah...such was true as River attacked the piano with a fury not seen by many. Eventually her anger was thus soothed and she allowed Haruo to be near her...and jamming with her. It wasn't certain if he was forgiven because that abduction was truly a traumatic experience.
THEN it happened again for a second time. This was beyond annoying. River was truly getting sick and tired of the view of the galaxy from a front-row seat in an unidentified flying object. And she wasn't at all happy with Bix Vad Boort either no matter how friendly he was or how gentle he said he was going to make his probing. And she told him that he could just take someone else the next time because the next time he came calling, SHE wasn't going.
So a week later they took Yasahiro instead. River: "Hold me please, honey...I think they took a different route up the wazoo this time around."
Yes, it was traumatic for River, even the second time around...and again she resorted to music to soothe her and calm her fears.
We're still waiting to see if Yasahiro is pregnant as a result.
Fall came and with it were the resplendant colours of the changing trees. And as the season progressed, the trees got even more colourful.
Haruo gardened...
And fished so that he could bring his wares into the grocery store and sent three dragonfish from the lake to Fort Gnome to be a part of the Scaly Research Program of which he had absolutely no idea what it was about. The whole thing was classified tighter than Scrooge's wallet.
As Fall progressed, the torrential rains came. Every day was thunder and lightning and rain...bucketfuls of it. Just like home to the Creator. Haruo's hand sprouted an umbrella, the fashionable and smart things to do. River and Haruo went and got themselves a flu shot. And on top of that and the unpleasantness of the abductions, came the icing on the cake. Brayden, the baby of the family, brought home a girl...an ambitious little hoyden who made River wonder where there was a blasted volume switch. She was likeable enough but sometimes she didn't have a filter. River didn't know what to think...as she sized the girl up with a stare. "Just what makes you think you're good enough for my son?" was the first thing that ran through her mind before she viciously bit that down. She wasn't going to behave like Haruo's mother. She would be welcoming and as friendly as she could possibly manage...but darn it...this girl was trying to take her little baby away and River's heart was breaking in two.
Will River warm to this girl? Is all this girl interested in is Brayden's inheritance? So does Brayden believe that he met the girl of his dreams or did he make the biggest mistake and it will turn into a living nightmare?
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